


PART TWO: God is the Devil

by the1crazycatlady



Series: Love of My Un-Death [2]
Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula: Entre l'amour et la mort
Genre: Awful Parents, Dracula Influence/References, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, High School, Other, Read at Your Own Risk, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Vampires, child narration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:34:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6233467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the1crazycatlady/pseuds/the1crazycatlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rebecca Mary Renfield has always felt as though something was...off. Eventually, the truth dawned: R.M. Renfield is not a girl.</p><p>I'm going to be brutally honest - this was painful to WRITE, when I knew what was COMING. It's a rough road. Trigger warnings for-</p><p>+negative self-esteem<br/>+transphobia<br/>+minor abusive behaviors<br/>+minor drug use (that, spoiler, gets worse in later parts of this series)<br/>+warped/primitive/incorrect views on what it means to be trans</p><p>Peace. <3</p><p>(Part 2/7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**_December 23rd, 2028_ **

The first memory that Rebecca had was that of a Christmas party her parents had thrown for their church friends. She was five at the time and got stuck upstairs with a stupid babysitter that made her get straight into her jammies and "go to sleep like a good little girl." She'd then promptly passed out in the chair next to Rebecca's bed with a gnarled hand clutched to some lovey-dovey novel.

Rebecca stared at the funny lady; she had a nose like a potato and the demeanor of a pig. Rebecca giggled, kicking away the blankets and jumping out of bed. She stopped to snicker at the babysitter, then paused, cocking her head in order to get a better look at the book clutched in those old-lady hands.

On the cover was a man and a woman, and they were dressed funny, their clothes flimsy like fairies' wings. The lady was sleeping on the man's chest, who glared right at Rebecca. The little girl's eyes widened and she turned, running out of the room.

There were noises coming from downstairs. She scurried to the staircase banister and stood on her tippy-toes to get a better look down. She saw a bunch of people walking around with apple juice in those fancy glasses her mommy wouldn't let her touch. They all were wearing sparkly clothing or shirts with those icky button-thingies. The ladies had their hair piled high on their heads like stupid princesses and about half the men looked like they had just gotten out of the bath. Rebecca's nose wrinkled at all the funny smells.

By now curious, she shuffled to the side and began to tiptoe down the stairs. She paused on the fifth-to-bottom step, her little heart going thumpy-thumpy-thump in her chest, then went down those last few steps and stepped out into the mob of people.

They didn't even notice her, and that was something she was okay with. It was always strange to her that grown-ups liked to poke and prod and be all, “Isn't she a little darling! Oh, Jaine” – that was Rebecca's mother – “you're going to have such lovely grandchildren!”

Really, Rebecca didn't want to be a mommy – it was too much work, and Jaine always talked about how _painful_  giving birth was. No, Rebecca didn't want to be a mommy. A daddy, maybe, cause then she wouldn't have to get all big and then go through all that pain; everyone had laughed at her when she mentioned this idea, though, which she had thought was an awfully good one.

“Silly!” they'd cried. “You're a girl – girls can't be daddies!”

She'd just stared at them, completely mute.

Rebecca scurried through the sea of legs and dived under a table with snacky foods and apple juice. She huffed, pulling her knees in and making herself a small little ball. She batted at the tablecloth, then laid down and peeked out from under the little crack between it and the floor. The Renfields had a lovely carpet, so Rebecca got very comfy.

Of course, it was a bummer that all she saw was people's feet. But that was okay, the carpet was comfy.

“Oh, Meredith, I'm so glad you could come!”

“Jaine, _hello!”_

Rebecca pulled herself closer to the edge of the tablecloth and squinted out. Closest to the table were two women, one with shiny silver shoes and the other with boring black ones. Jaine Renfield would never wear anything like those fancy silver things, so Rebecca decided that that lady must be whoever the heck Meredith was.

“Jaine, this is such a wonderful party – thanks for the invitation.”

“Anytime, Meredith.”

“So, how have things been going down at the salon?”

Jaine Renfield was a hair-cutter person, and she had her own shop. She cut hair with these finger thingies that were so sharp, Rebecca was forbidden to touch them. Anyway, she put the finger thingies on and then just _felt_ the hair away. It was a magical experience to watch as the hair just went falling before your eyes and down to the floor.

“Good,” Jaine replied, “very good – actually, I have a story about something that happened the other day.”

“Oh, do tell,” Meredith begged.

“Well, I was cleaning the claws and this young woman came in. I noticed her because she had long, beautiful hair that went all the way down to her waist. It was extremely thick, shiny, and just _gorgeous._  And yet... When she got to the chair, can you believe that she asked me to cut it all off?”

“Really?” Meredith gasped.

“I know,” Jaine said. “She wanted an ugly Mohawk thing instead. It was so sudden - well, of course I was just _shocked._ I asked if she was completely certain, and she reached into her purse and pulled out this great stack of bills.”

“She _was_ serious.”

Rebecca was bored. If she'd known that the grown-ups were going to be so dull, she would've stayed upstairs with the equally boring babysitter. At least up there she could play with her cars and Barbies and pretend she was one of those American mob bosses on TV, coming to get Barbie and have her pay up.

“So, well, I began to cut her hair,” Jaine continued. “And of course I was curious as to _why_ she wanted to get rid of such lovely hair. I asked her this, and she said the following words exactly: 'It makes me too feminine.'

“ 'But it's so pretty on you,' I said. But this girl didn't care at all, she said that she didn't want any of it anymore.”

There was a scoff and the Meredith lady said: “Unfortunate. Society really has been demolished in the past few decades, don't you agree?”

“Yes, I do,” Jaine stated. “And there's more to the story – I suggested that maybe she get a pixie cut, but she _demanded_ that I give her the Mohawk. And it was in such a rude tone, too! Anyway, she said that she was _not_ a girl, and she hated the pixie hairstyle! Can you imagine?”

Rebecca frowned, going from bored to confused. A girl that's not a girl? _Weird_. And how could someone not like Jaine's haircuts? They were so pretty, and Jaine was the bestest haircutter person.

Meredith gasped. Then: “See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. All these ideas are corrupting our youth! Christ created us in His image, and we are born the way He decides us to be. It's going against nature! Honestly, it makes me _sick_ to think of people going outside their set sexes. It's the way things have been since the dawn of time without any trouble...”

Rebecca had thoughts on this Christ guy. He created everyone in His image, okay – but what about women? Rebecca was pretty sure that He was both a guy and girl, honestly, and she was proud of herself for this idea cause it sounded smart. She liked to be smart.

But when she told her mother about this, she had gotten slapped. Rebecca had started to cry and Jaine apologized, then forbade her to tell anyone else about these “notions of the Devil.” Rebecca had been scared then; she always got scared when the Devil was mentioned.

Meredith and Jaine's conversation took a boring turn as they went from the picky girl-who-is-not-actually-a-girl to vacation plans for the next summer. Rebecca yawned and curled up on the carpet, her eyes drooping shut.

She fell asleep and dreamt of men who were also women and girls who didn't like long hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**_September, 2038_ **

Everyone said that she was an odd one, Rebecca Renfield. She preferred to go by her initials, R.M., not that any of the teachers cared. She was “Miss Renfield” and it bugged her. Still, she pushed the feelings away and demanded that the students call her R.M. She once beat up a guy who taunted her by saying, “Rebecca,” over and over and over and _overoverover_ again. That showed him.

That also showed her to the principal's office and a suspension.

Oops.

She never wore her school-issued uniform skirt, instead choosing the pants. She never tucked in her shirt and wore her hair up high in a ponytail, or in a hat when it was allowed. She was an abomination to the proud name of St. George's Catholic High School, people feared, but she stayed just enough out of trouble and just enough to herself to stay at the school and out of her parents' “Watch Carefully” radar.

Behind her back and across the hall while she was at her locker, people called her lots of things. “Lesbo” was a common enough title. _Lesbo, lesbo, lesbo..._ “Dyke” also showed up frequently. She would shoot them the finger, then go home and lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the cute brunette in her Science class. This made her feel dirty and guilty. She always felt on edge during prayer at dinner and at church.

She wished it was easy, that she could just point a finger at herself in the bathroom mirror and say, voice strong and clear: “You are a lesbian.” But then her parents might hear her, and she dreaded them knowing how much time she spent in detention because she always left her gym clothes in her locker since she didn't want to get dressed with the other girls.

The first time she vocalized any hints of this confusion was to a sort-of friend, Danny Baker. He didn't talk much, and at the time of this declaration, he'd just stared at her, then shook his head and mumbled something Rebecca hadn't caught.

Danny was cute, though definitely not Rebecca's type. He was your typical nerd – scrawny, covered in zits, far more interested in playing Magic than in socializing – and they didn't really have a lot in common. They only stuck together to fight off the horde of Other People. They'd sat at the same empty table on the first day of school and continued to do so for the rest of their high school career. They didn't talk much, but that suited both of them just fine.

But then there was that dinner with Rebecca's family - it had made her stop and address the fears she'd pushed away. It made her try and reach out to Danny.

They'd just said their prayers – Rebecca had stared down at her plate, hands clasped, mind blank – and her father, Aaron, asked how her day at school had been.

“Fine,” she replied, playing golf with her food. “We dissected frogs in Science, but that's all that was interesting.” And even that had been a bore.

Then they started to talk about Grandpa Bram – he was Rebecca's grandfather on her mother's side and a self-proclaimed vampire hunter. He'd been in the army service years ago, and he'd gone places and apparently seen “many fascinating vampirific entities.” According to Jaine, he'd gone insane over the belief of vampires because of some post-traumatic stress disorder he'd developed while in the service. He was harmless, though, so he currently resided at the local nursing home where he spent his days scaring the other old folks and stinking of garlic.

“Rebecca, dear,” Jaine began, “could you visit Grandpa Bram this weekend?”

Rebecca made a quiet face, putting her fork down. “Why?”

“Because he's a sick lunatic and you tolerate him,” Aaron said. Rebecca glared at him, then looked over at her mother; Jaine was flushing red in the face.

“But what if I don't want to?” Rebecca asked.

“Why wouldn't you want to, though?” Jaine wondered.

_Because he gave me so many nightmares as a kid with his horror stories about mythical vampire beings,_ Rebecca thought. But she kept quiet and chewed at her food.

“Is it because you're planning to meet up with Danny this weekend?” Jaine wondered. Rebecca jerked her head up, surprised by the question.

“What?” she asked.

“I said, is it because you're planning to meet up with Danny this weekend?”

“Um... No?” Why would she? The one time they'd gotten together outside of school, Danny had watched the news while Rebecca sighed and imagined herself with shorter hair. It had been _very_ boring, but at least she had decided on a good hairstyle to covet after in the darkness of the night like an obsessive freak.

“Good,” Aaron stated. Rebecca widened her eyes at him, then looked over at Jaine.

“Mom?” she asked. “What's the problem with Danny?” After all, he was so... _tame_. Nerdy. He never broke the rules and always was so sickeningly polite to even the biggest assholes.

“Rebecca,” Jaine said, “your father and I don't want you to see him anymore.”

_“See_ him?” Rebecca repeated. She laughed, coughing up a few peas and choking accidentally. At her parents' dirty looks, she cleared her throat and added: “We're _not_ dating.”

It was obvious that neither of the adults believed this statement, but that they were choosing to keep quiet.

“Whether you are or not,” Jaine stated, “we don't want you socializing with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he lives in a _lesbian_ household,” Aaron spat.

Rebecca stared at him, then looked over at her mother; the disapproval seemed to be dripping down from their faces, splattering on the table and staining it a disgusting brown color. Rebecca swallowed and picked up her fork again, plunging it into the meatloaf. She had an image of it being her heart and did it ever feel the same. Her mother and father were plunging a fork into her heart and puncturing it, ripping it to pieces and digging their teeth into it.

She didn't even like Danny that much, not really. He was just...there. He was the guy who was there. But the reason why they didn't want her to hang out with him...it hurt, she realized. It hurt a lot.

_Are you purposely trying to hurt me?_

The thought made her eyes widen and the obvious fears began pulling at one arm while her sense of safety tugged on the other. Rebecca swallowed, shoulders tensing and then loosening when the fears won.

Something sweet and sour tickled her tongue and she licked her lips, leaning back in her seat. And then she knew that, whatever happened, Rebecca knew then that she couldn't stop “seeing” Danny, and she was amazed with herself. She wanted to hang out with him because her parents didn't want her to! God, what sick teenage rebellion...

“Yes, Mom,” she said. She put some meatloaf in her mouth, swallowed, then glanced over at Aaron. “Yes, Dad.”

Jaine and Aaron shot each other satisfied smiles, then Jaine asked: “So, Rebecca, you'll visit Grandpa Bram?”

Rebecca took a deep breath and nodded mutely. She suddenly wasn't hungry - the food clunked down into her stomach and made it ache. She felt so heavy and hollow inside - empty, even, but also sickeningly full.

She didn't look at them the rest of the evening.

At midnight, she called Danny, knowing full well that he would be awake; he liked to stay up late, though Rebecca didn't know actually know why. She just figured that he was programming a world domination device and didn't ask questions.

Someone picked up the phone and grunted.

“Danny?” she asked. “It's R.M.”

“Hi,” he said.

“Listen, Danny..." Could she do this? This wasn't something they did, calling each other in the middle of the night and all. "I want you to know something." She paused and took a deep breath. _There's no one else._ "My-my parents want us to stop hanging out because you live in, and I quote, a _'lesbian'_ household, but I don't care about that because I think I might be a lesbian myself or-or something and I-I-I'm so scared and- Are you there?”

There was a brief silence.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay with...like...” Rebecca went red in the face and looked up at the ceiling. “You know? This late?”

“Yeah,” Danny replied.

A sudden knocking on the door stopped Rebecca before she could reply. “Um...” She put the phone down on the stack of National Geographic magazines on her desk and opened the door. Her mother was on the other side, smiling, face perfect, hair perfect, everything about her perfect.

“Mom,” Rebecca muttered. “What is it?”

“I was just going to the bathroom and saw that the light in your room was still on,” Jaine explained, leaning against the doorframe. “Why are you still up?”

“N-No reason.”

Jaine smiled again. “Then off to bed now, all right?” She reached out and leached her fingers to Rebecca's head, scratching at it and mussing up her hair like she was a dog. “Staying up late isn't good for a young woman like you.” At that, she wrinkled her nose and reached out, brushing the straps of Rebecca's tank top aside and frowning deeper. “Why are you wearing a bra to bed?”

Rebecca felt the world freeze. “Um,” she said, pulling her strap back up and trying to flatten her boobs into oblivion. “B-Because.”

“That sports bra looks awfully tight on you, honey,” Jaine replied. “You know you shouldn't sleep with tight clothing on, right?” She continued on before Rebecca could reply: “Why don't we go get some new bras for you next week? As a reward for keeping Grandpa Bram company this weekend. We could go shopping! All girls love shopping.”

More abuse toward Rebecca's heart – she _hated_ shopping, and she didn't want to get rid of her too-small sports bras no matter how uncomfortable they were; they made her chest smaller. She cringed and forced herself a smile and nod like a damn bobblehead.

“Yes, Mom, of course, Mom, now off to bed I go, Mom.” She grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Panting, she leaned back against it until she was sure that Jaine had gone. Then she went back to the phone and picked it up.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“I..." She felt sick again and sighed. "I'll see you Monday.”

For a moment, Danny Baker sounded like he would say a complete sentence.

But Rebecca hung up on him before she could see if he would.


	3. Chapter 3

**_September 26th, 2038_ ** **_  
_ **

What you first noticed about Grandpa Bram was that he smelled like he'd marinated himself in garlic sauce. “It's to ward of the wampyres!” was his excuse.

The smell was overwhelmingly disgusting at first, but when you saw him as much as Rebecca was forced to, it became just hardly tolerable. After the longest time, you might see past the old man's bad tastes in cologne and notice a physical resemblance between him and Rebecca; they and Jaine all had the same eyes - apparently, it was a dominant gene on that side of the family.

They were in the visitor's lounge at the nursing home and Grandpa Bram started talking about the lamia, which was a Greek vampire demon with the body of a snake and blah, blah, blah. Some weird Medusa thing. Rebecca made the necessary grunts of attention and stared at her cell phone, experimenting with lighting angles in the camera to see if she could make her facial structure firmer.

God, she needed major therapy – imagine, spending your free time trying to give yourself with a different facial structure! She was pretty, she should have been happy. But she wasn't; she didn't want to be pretty. All she knew was that something was wrong with what she'd been given, and thinking about changing it always made her feel productive.

In the threshes of her lighting experiments, she faintly heard Grandpa Bram say: "...the lamia's sex depends on who you're talking to..." She lowered her phone and looked up at him.

“What, Grandpa Bram?" she asked. "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught what you just said. About, um, the Greek vampire thing.”

He cocked his head at her, long white hair swishing against his chin and neck. “I was talking about the lamia, R.M. I was commenting about how while they are generally considered to be female, they have also been described as being hermaphroditic demons.”

The world paused and Rebecca stared at him. "Oh-Oh?" she mumbled. "You mean, it's either or...?"

Grandpa Bram scoffed. "Really, does it matter what the lamia's sex is? She, it, they - those are just pronouns. The point is, this is a dangerous creature, and-"

Rebecca dropped her cell phone suddenly. She was shaking all over and slowly bent over, mumbling an apology. She picked up the phone, then started to shakily type something into Google with crazy, insane eyes. _Pronouns, facial structure, too-tight sports bra, lamia, pronouns..._ What was she even thinking, really? Words all jumbled up without any sense, mostly.

Her grandfather reached out and put his thin, bony hand on her shoulder.

“R.M.?” he asked. Rebecca's heart fluttered while Google loaded- Damn, just a bunch of crap about women's failed sex lives; she looked over at the old man.

“Yeah, Grandpa?”

“Are you scared again, like you were when you were a child?” he asked. “I'm just trying to educate you on the horrors of the vampirific being-”

“No!” she blurted, plopping the word “assigned” into her query. The first result was for some website called transwhat.org. She stared, completely rigid. _Confused?_ it read. _Start here._ _  
_

Her blood froze and she stared, everything seeming to shut down. This had to be some freak site - it would only confuse her more, and it _had_  to be something her parents wouldn't approve of.

She shook her head, taking a breath and preparing to tell Grandpa Bram to continue on with his stories about the lamia - she was just being a freak again.

But she couldn't stop staring at that word, "confused." She was confused, she realized. _I'm confused and freaked out._  She licked her lips. "Not scared," she mumbled to her grandfather. The back of her neck went damp and she reached out for the touch screen.

The webpage background was many different hues of blue with a little bit of purple. It was very plain and simple, honestly a little dull. She blinked, waiting for her virus program to start blaring or Satan to climb up from the floor and laugh demonically as she got dragged down to Hell. But there was nothing.

She read the introductory paragraph.  _“This section will be written as a couple of short paragraphs, introducing the idea of transgender and/or transsexuality to those who are completely new to the concept. It is about as basic as I can make it. Read on!”_

It was a good thing she was sitting down, because her legs fell out beneath her right then. _What the hell...?_ She looked over at Grandpa Bram; the old man was staring at her from beside the window, blue eyes scrunched up in confusion.

“Not scared,” she repeated quietly. "Not really."


	4. Chapter 4

**_January 13th, 2039_ **

Joining the photography class was the best decision she had ever made.

She actually felt like _something_ when she had that camera with her. She would go around, snapping pictures of the student body and her family and smirking whenever she caught people off-guard. She'd managed to capture some pretty embarrassing moments, and a bit of money as a result.

But none of that was as amazing as the finals steps you took with the pictures: editing. When you put the pictures in Photoshop, it was like you were God. You could do _anything_ , it seemed, so long as you possessed the appropriate skills.

The teacher said that Rebecca had those skills. “Miss Renfield, you're a natural photographer,” was something she constantly reminded her. And whenever she said that - and once the pains of being referred to as a “miss” had gone away - Rebecca actually felt something besides the numbness that had taken over her lately. Sometimes it was just a flicker that only lasted a moment, but on other days, she was on air until the final bell rang.

They had to do a self-portrait for one project; that set Rebecca ill-of-ease. A self-portrait? But that girl in the mirror wasn't who she really was inside, her lips were too big and her eyes were too delicate and...

Rebecca didn't know what to do. She didn't want to insult the teacher because she'd been so nice to her – Rebecca wanted to make her proud so she'd continue to praise her and make her feel like less of a freak.

She took a refection shot and tried to turn it in. The teacher had taken it with a blank face.

“Miss Renfield, you've done better than this,” she said. “This looks like something every student's turned in.”

The fact that she thought that made Rebecca choke, and she found herself asking for permission to access the computer lab during lunch so she could work on the project. The teacher smiled at that.

Danny Baker had lunch alone that day.

\+ + +

The teacher was right – the picture was absolute crap. Rebecca wrinkled her nose and tossed it into the trash without a second thought. As she was pulling back, her reflection in the shiny metal bookshelves next to the garbage can caught her eye and she paused, staring at herself.

You could say that she was pretty – she didn't think that, though. She hated looking at her reflection because all she could do was point out every feminine part of her, from her too-big chest to the long hair she wanted to hack off.

A question nagged at her: how could you take a self-portrait when your real self wasn't the true you?

Peeking out the lab door to make sure no one was nearby, she backed into the wall and unbuttoned her shirt. Then she slipped her hair under a hat and drew in a breath. By now paranoid, she set the timer on the camera and put it on top of a computer, then stood in front of it and stared at the lens.

She didn't smile.

She _couldn't_ smile.

The picture was blurry in places and the angle was strange, but she buttoned up her shirt and sat down at a computer. She uploaded the photo into Photoshop and got to work.

She gave herself the features she wanted – thin lips, thicker eyebrows, a less feminine facial structure. But there wasn't a way to fix her chest, sadly. She blurred it up beyond recognition and tried to ignore the black sports bra.

By the time she'd finished, the bell was ringing, her lunch was untouched, and she needed to get her next class. She saved the picture into the photography class file and gathered her things, lost in thought.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where things start to go downhill

**_April 5th, 2039_ ** **_  
_ **

Rebecca stared at herself in the mirror. After a pause, she scrambled up and put a knee on the sink, bringing herself closer to the reflection. She turned her face over and looked at the side of it.

A guy had come to school wearing his sister's skirt that day. People had protested to it, saying that they were uncomfortable and all that crap, so he was sent to the office. The next Rebecca saw of him, he had had on a pair of pants and looked like he was going to cry.

He'd looked better in a skirt - he had nice legs.

Rebecca ran her fingers along her jawline, and, at the chin, drew them down along her neck. She swallowed and smiled at how obvious her Adam's apple was. Then she looked up and saw her eyes, her eyebrows, her damn nose. She admired her beautiful sideburns. But looking away, there were those stupid little lips, all beautiful and bow-shaped. She wished they were thinner, or at least _not so damn rosy._ She wished her eyelashes weren't so long. She wanted a stubble on her chin, but all that was there was just sweet, soft skin, smooth without any sort of stop.

Rebecca glanced even further down and her face fell. She grabbed at her boobs, hidden behind their sports bra, and she felt so...devastated. Miserable for no reason.

_What the hell am I doing in this body?_ she thought, crawling off the sink and sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. _I don't belong in it._ It was like she was some weird alien in a human shell or something: when she looked at herself, she didn't recognize the image.

She wished she could get a brain transplant. She'd ask to have her brain be put in a guy's body. She wouldn't have to be attractive or anything, but shit, she just wanted to get away...or at least to have an escape from her period, that horrible monthly reminder of how much she wanted-

“Stop,” she muttered. “Stop. Just because you're not...not...” She couldn't even think about it. “You're fine,” she told herself. “Perfectly fine.”

She heard a car pull up in the driveway and went pale. Car doors slammed and she reached out for the curtain over the bathroom window, pulling it aside. Peeking out, she saw her parents coming up the driveway, arms wrapped around each other and laughing. Rebecca pulled away, closing the curtains.

She stood up and looked back at herself in the mirror, then heaved a big sigh and reached over for her tank top. She slid it on, then unlocked the bathroom door.

She took one step out into the hallway and paused, frozen and rooted by an invisible anchor. She could hear her parents talking and laughing down in the kitchen; Jaine mentioned something about trimming Aaron's hair before church on Sunday.

Rebecca coughed and moaned. Suddenly shaking all over, she stumbled into her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

“I can't do this,” she muttered, flopping forward on her bed. “I can't do this!”

Danny had said to just “do it or don't.” But Rebecca didn't want to do either – what she really wanted was to not have to suffer through her stigma. God was the Devil for cursing her this way.

_Pull it together, Renfield,_ she told herself. _They're your parents and they love you. They'll listen._

She sucked in a breath, then rolled over onto her back. She stared at the ceiling and eventually sat up; she rocked back and forth a moment, looking around the room and picking at the rings on her fingers. She coughed again.

Down in the kitchen, Jaine was wearing the Clawz and trimming Aaron's hair. They laughed at something and smiled when Rebecca came in.

“Rebecca, there you are!” Aaron greeted. She smiled weakly at him.

“Rebecca, honey, how would you like a bit of a trim after your father?” Jaine wondered.

“Um.” Truth be told, Rebecca wished her mother would snip away the whole length of it, but that was a bit too much to ask, at least right then. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. _Do it or don't._ “Mom...Dad... I-I have something to say.”

“What?” Aaron asked.

She froze, mouth open. Then she gasped, coughing once. “I-I-I...” _I can't do this._  "I want to tell you something." She paused, regaining her balance and willing for her brain to slow down and focus. "Some-Something I-I-I have thought about long and hard. Something im-important." She swallowed and couldn't breathe. _I'm not doing it right,_  she thought. _I'm panicking!_

“Rebecca,” Jaine began, “whatever it is, you can tell us. You're our daughter – we love you-”

“But-But-But I'm not your daughter,” Rebecca stammered, cringing. "I'm-I'm...a guy..." The last two words were mere whispers.

Jaine stopped working on Aaron's hair and they stared at ~~her~~ him, faces wearing identical looks of confusion and hostility. Rebecca continued ahead like a bullet train, suddenly not seeing any reason to hold it back anymore.

“You see, I'm-I'm trans. Um, that means that my-”

Jaine reached out and the first thing Rebecca saw was the Clawz, then her furious face. Then, when her hand made contact with ~~her~~ his face, it was like ~~she~~ he had a giant papercut across the cheek. He shrieked, recoiling and cupping the side of his face.

“Jaine!” Aaron cried.

“You are _not_ a boy,” Jaine said coldly, looking down at her bloody fingers. “Our Lord Jesus Christ made you a girl. You have female body parts, therefore you are female. If He had wanted you to be male, He would have made you such.” She shuddered. “My daughter is _not_ a freak of nature - do you hear me, Rebecca? You are _not_ one of those horrible, ungrateful little sinners rebelling for the sake of popularity.”

Rebecca pulled ~~her~~ his hands away from his face and felt sick when he saw that they were red. He stared at his palms, Jaine's words bouncing forward and slowly sliding into ~~her~~ his ears and poking at his eyeballs.

“My daughter will not be an abomination!” Jaine exclaimed. Then she huffed. “Right, Aaron?”

Aaron nodded quietly, staring at the blood on his wife's fingers. “Your mother's right, Rebecca." He looked away. "You're a young woman – that's the way God made you. Why do you suddenly have this idea that you're transgender?”

Rebecca looked at them, but there was just disappointment. He turned away, looking down, and blood dripped from the cuts on ~~her~~ his cheek, splattering onto the kitchen tile. He tried to swallow the disappointment and that nagging "I told you so," but they were both so big and ~~she~~ he felt himself choking to death.

"Aaron, why don't you fix up her face."

But Rebecca wouldn't let his father get anywhere near him. ~~She~~ He shoved Aaron away with his bloodstained hands and backed away, dripping and ruining the carpet. Everywhere, religious symbols were mocking him while he tried to escape. The portrait of St. Mary hanging next to the staircase looked down at ~~her~~ him with judgmental eyes and Rebecca wished the floor would just give away and pull ~~her~~ him down to fucking Hell and get it fucking over with.

Mary blocked him and held him back like a crucifix for an urban vampire. ~~Her~~ His cheek hurt _so much_  and he skirted around the portrait, anything to get away from all the judgment and lies.

St. Mary spoke to him suddenly. She had a soft, scornful voice that demanded that you stop and pay attention at risk of severe bodily harm.

"It would have been better to have done the don't," she jeered. He looked at her with wide eyes and watched her laugh at ~~her~~ him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Renfield uses really hostile, transphobic language to describe himself.

**_June 30th, 2041_ ** **_  
_ **

Color everywhere. Neon swirls and stars thundered against Renfield's temple, trying to bash his brains out and destroy him. He'd shrieked, flailed, and the needle pricked against the tip of his finger.

They'd lied to him! They'd said that it would make him feel _better_ , but instead he felt so sick, like he was going to throw up. He gagged, dropping the syringe and rolling onto his stomach. His innards clenched together like a giant had stuck its hand in him and tightened its grip, squeezing harder and harder while it turned them around. _Cramps,_ he recognized in the back of his head. Then there was an acidic taste in the back of Renfield's throat and he scrambled up onto his knees.

The surrounding temperature escalated millions of degrees. His heart pounded in his chest and he couldn't think anymore. Acid rose up in his throat and Renfield opened his mouth to breathe. Then everything went cold in the snap of a finger and the acid in his throat flung itself out of his body, splattering onto the pavement before him. He coughed, brushing his horrible, disgustingly long hair out of his face.

And the tears streamed down, mixing with the bile to create sad sickness.

He rolled over onto his back, under some bushes. The fronds covering him helped with that bizarre sensation of the stars rushing down to him so they could prick at his body, pull on his breasts until they felt sore and made him cry harder from the searing pain, but then, just as soon as they came, zoom away and leave him alone.

The bushes protected Renfield from the stars. He felt safe, almost, but also very queasy. He sobbed, regretting the moment he'd ever taken that needle and stuck it in his arm.

He gagged and reached out for a branch, but it was suddenly so far away. His breathing was deep and heavy – like syrup. He barked out a laugh and gasped.

A warm blanket of happiness had wrapped itself around him now. It held him close and whispered into his ear, telling him that he was okay, he was safe. Renfield sighed, curling into a ball and letting the blanket get tighter around him.

He was happy,he realized. Everything was okay – his parents loved and respected him as a man, he didn't have to suffer through the stigma of not wanting to go to college, and the hot guy working at the mall loved him back. God had reached down and given him an escape to his agonies. Things were okay now, even if he had taken a little bit of a beating to get there; everything had a pricetag attached to it.

He hadn't been so happy in such a long time. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled without forcing his facial muscles to work, or the last time he'd looked in the mirror and actually liked what he saw.

He was happy and things were okay now. He would be fine.

 

\+ + +

Someone was calling his name. _Renfield, Renfield, Renfield..._ He turned over onto his back and reached out of the bushes; something grabbed his hand and pulled him out a bit, causing his face to scratch against the twigs in the process - but he was happy, so it didn't matter.

“Renfield!”

It was Danny Baker – Renfield had forgotten that Danny had come to the party. Last Renfield saw of him, he was looking sickly down at an untouched cup of beer and seeming very much out of place.

Renfield opened his mouth and felt himself form words. “Hey, Danny...”

“Renfield, what is it?” Danny put his hand under Renfield's armpits and pulled him out from under the bushes.

“You're talkative all of a sudden...”

“Answer!”

Renfield shook his head. “Just something these guys gave me. It hurt at first, but now I feel so great, so happy, like all my problems have just gone away...”

Danny looked off to the side and the syringe sparkled on the sidewalk. He made a face and turned back to Renfield. “You're an idiot, Renfield, a total _idiot.”_

“Am not.”

Danny protested with a quiet head shake, then started to help Renfield up. “I want to take you somewhere.”

“Where?” Renfield wondered as he rested his head on Danny's shoulder; it helped the world not be so fuzzy, and Danny was nice and stable.

In response to the question, “You'll see,” was all Danny said.

 

\+ + +

“...how could you do this to us...?”

“...do you have any sort of self-respect...?”

Renfield looked at Jaine and Aaron, blinked, then turned away. The hospital bed was hard against his back and there were weird things in his arms. The lights were too bright and he didn't want to talk to his parents; he was furious with Danny for calling them. It was one thing to take away the happiness and pull him out of that safe place in the bush and replace it with this wacko place and all _its_ horror stories, but it was quite another to tell his _parents_ about it.

"You needed to get that stuff out of your bloodstream!" Danny had protested. "Sorry I called them, but what else could I do...?"

Renfield had told him to beat it, to go to hell, and then he'd hidden under the scratchy blue hospital blanket until he knew Danny was gone.

His parents had shown up a few minutes later, raising hell about the whole damn incident.

“Rebecca,” Jaine said. “Rebecca, honey, look at us.”

He stiffened - he wasn't Rebecca. Rebecca was that little girl who'd laid under the appetizers' table during the Renfields' 2028 Christmas party. Rebecca was that little girl who didn't want to be a mommy. Rebecca was a confused lesbian who also happened to be fascinated with the male body in her free time.

He wasn't Rebecca.

He was nothing. A freak - a man in a woman's body. An _it._ A _shemale._ A fucking confused _faggotdykething._

“Leemelone,” he muttered.

“Rebecca...” Aaron began.

“Go away!” Renfield shouted, turning away from them. Those people had lied about everything, including their love for him, and they refused to look at him the way he was.

He hated them, he suddenly realized. It was a startling epiphany. He _hated_ them. Yes – he was a spider that eternally crawled over their legs, biting them because they tried to swat him and attack him with bugspray.

He hated them. He hated them and he felt so guilty for it and ashamed that he was guilty because of the simple truth.

Aaron and Jaine looked down at their child, then at each other. Then they sighed and left him alone in the hospital room.

_Good._


	7. Chapter 7

**_July, 2041_ **

He left them.

He didn't want anything to do with them.

The person he'd met at the party gave him some contact info for a guy in London; at least Renfield could go there and not worry about being left to suffer without a way to ease the pain.

He visited Grandpa Bram before he left, and what happened was...unexpected. It left Renfield feeling sick to his stomach.

The old man was on his deathbed at that point, so he was up in his room at the nursing home, and he didn't smell of garlic anymore. When Renfield got there, he was surprised that he missed the smell.

Hsaw that his grandfather was buried underneath his blankets and sleeping - he woke up when Renfield came in, then smiled and sat up. “R.M.,” he croaked. Renfield nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Hi, Grandpa Bram.” He rubbed at inner elbow – it was a habit he'd picked up ever since that first night of drugs at the party; it made him feel like there was control in life. “You feeling okay?”

Bram grunted. “I'd feel better if my daughter paid as much attention to me as you did.”

Renfield cleared his throat. “She... She's convinced you're insane.”

Grandpa Bram rolled his eyes, barking out a laugh. “She's convinced anything remotely non-Catholic is insane. Little does she know that the vampires we know most well have very deep roots in the Church. Like Vlad Tzepes – do you remember Tzepes, R.M.?”

“No, Grandpa.” Renfield slid down onto the floor and laid his head on the edge of the bed. “Why don't you tell me about him?”

The old man leaned back in bed and started to prattle. Renfield felt himself start to zone out like he always did, but he shook his head and looked at his grandfather, watching the man's lips move and his eyes glow with every sorry word.

Vlad Tzepes had been Prince of the small European country Wallachia back in the late fifteenth century. He was a member of a sobriquet of noblemen that protected the Christian faith from invading Muslims, the Draculs. He is more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler because of his preferred method of torturing his war prisoners and a few other things that made Renfield throw up a little in his mouth. As the old tales go, the conqueror became the conquered when he met Elhemina, the alluring Princess of Hungary. The wedding was arranged so Hungary and Wallachia could combine their forces against their mutual enemy, the Ottoman Turks, but Tzepes unexpectedly fell in love with Elhemina and all hope was lost. It turned out that Elhemina was a vampire and she killed Tzepes on their honeymoon - "bittermoon!" Shortly thereafter, she was destroyed by a mob of angry villagers.

“It's said that Tzepes,” Grandpa Bram continued, “who is more commonly known as Dracula nowadays - it's said that he still roams the earth as a vampire himself, looking for his lost wife after all these centuries.”

Renfield yawned, rubbing at his eyes. “How sappy,” he mumbled. Grandpa Bram shrugged, then started to cough harshly, like his lungs would pop out. Renfield stared at him with wide eyes.

“Gr-Grandpa?” he stammered.

The old man shook his hands at him. “Just a cough. Too many of those these days. Anyway.” He smiled to himself. “I've always thought that Tzepes and Jaine would get along very well.”

Renfield went pale and looked away. He pulled his legs in and stared at the floor, thinking about Vlad Tzepes and Jaine Renfield. He felt sick just harmlessly playing with the idea of them being in the same _room,_ much less _face-to-face_ and talking and _exchanging religious doctrine like old friends._

Renfield shuddered and looked back up at Grandpa Bram. He reached up and rubbed at his watery eyes, then put his hand on his grandfather's.

“They're scary people,” he muttered, leaning into the blankets.

Bram lowered his gaze and Renfield knew that he was looking at the set of scars on the side of his face; Renfield turned away.

“I'm going to London," he announced suddenly. "So I can get away from them.” He swallowed, blinking and pointing at the scars. “Mom gave these to me because I told her and Dad I-I wasn't the daughter she wanted me to be. B-B-Because I'm not a girl.”

There was a silence from Grandpa Bram, so Renfield went on, not caring if he got another set of scars.

“So I'm going now. I'm going to get at my college fund, and-and-and I'll get a top surgery!” He smiled to himself, looking into the old man's sick blue eyes. “Testosterone would-would be nicer, but that'd take forever and I want this _now._  Thi-this way, I can hide and not tell anyone and they-they-they'll never know!”

He was delusional.

“So you're going to lie forever?” Grandpa Bram asked quietly.

Renfield jerked away, standing up. “I-I-I'm going to get people to treat me like I want them to,” he mumbled. "It's called 'passing,' and-"

“Okay, R.M.,” Bram interrupted softly. “But...well, wouldn't that college fund be better for your education instead of plastic surgery?”

Renfield stared at him, then shook his head and turned away. “I've got to go,” he mumbled. “Bye, Grandpa.”

The old man passed away a couple months later.

\+ + +

The first time he saw himself after the top surgery, he cried. He looked so beautifully unfemale now, and if he cut his hair and didn't tell anyone, maybe touched up some makeup over the female parts of his face, he was a man. It was so wonderful.

One thing he hadn't counted on was the scars - they were right below each breast, two small crescent moons hugging the things. The doctors said that they might go away in time, but the chances were slight, considering how cheap Renfield had wanted the procedure to be.

Renfield told himself to never look at those scars. They would only remind him of things he wanted to forget, and that wasn't what he wanted at all.

_Wait and see,_ he told himself. _Everything will be okay._


End file.
